The Dragon Writers 2007 Anthology, edited by John Irvine, cover art by Dave Freeman, may be purchased from lulu.com here.

Many anthologies produced by online writing groups have to go through a laborious selection procedure, their editors weighing up the comparative value of submissions and walking a tightrope trying to avoid causing offence by omitting pieces by 'key' members. Some groups use a voting system, which can lead to unseemly political infighting. John Irvine, however, rises above such things. With superb skill and diplomacy, he simply invited the members of his group to tell him what was going in the anthology. I told him to include three of my poems - widow-maker, Tree Hugging, and yum yum slurp; plus one of my stories - Miss Tovey's Violin. So he did. Ah, would that all submissions were that simple.

Luckily for John, everyone in the group knows how to write so there was no danger of any dross slipping in amongst the gems, plus with a small membership, he knew he wasn't going to end up with thousands of submissions and a book the size of a small house.

When you know anything you submit will definitely be selected, you are freed from trying to 'please the editor', and can instead submit writing that is weird, fun, peculiar, experimental, archaic, or anything else. The result is an anthology full of surprises and probably the greatest variety of styles you'll find anywhere. Thus you will find a poem about eating worms; a philosophical lecture; a story set in a lighthouse; a painful description of having a tattoo; tales of pleasure, romance, desperation, horror - you name it, you'll find it. And more to the point, you'll enjoy it.